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Brightside to visit Tallahassee's Side Bar

Brightside: their name is everywhere around Tallahassee. Literally. Take a short walk around campus, and you’ll see their name on lampposts, bulletin boards, buildings… they’ve even branded some of our FSView boxes.

Brightside: their name is everywhere around Tallahassee. Literally. Take a short walk around campus, and you’ll see their name on lampposts, bulletin boards, buildings… they’ve even branded some of our FSView boxes. Though simple, this idea to place stickers around town and literally spread their name has proven to be a successful marketing strategy for the band.

Brightside is a Tallahassee based pop-rock band composed of five members: Connor Holcombe, Jake Long, Dillon Jordan, Will Dunaway and Cory Clark. Though based in a relatively small town, Brightside has begun to hit some major success. The band has two EP’s available for purchase and for streaming: Feels Like Fiction and Heart Science, along with 10.1 K Instagram followers and a tour scheduled with Bradenton-based rock band, We The Kings.

Brightside’s tour with We The Kings begins Tuesday March 28, so, they’ve agreed to meet with me and talk to me, not just about the upcoming tour, but about the work they do throughout the year. Hearing about their successes thus far, it comes to no surprise to me that this group puts full-time hours into their band.

“We practice pretty much every day,” said Long.

But, for Brightside, band practice isn’t just about writing and perfecting their music.

“We spend a lot of that time [in practice] doing social media work, and creating promotional videos and fliers, recording demos and writing new music...” said Holcombe.

“Also researching other bands and looking for new tour opportunities,” added Dunaway.

“Yeah,” continued Holcombe. “And hanging fliers around town- literally anything we can do to promote the band.”

The members of the band are involved in every aspect of their band, and interestingly, for the exception of recording their EPs and shooting music videos, they’ve done and continue to do everything themselves.

“Anything you see, is one of us,” said Clark. “Will designed our website, Dillon does the graphic designs that you see…”

“All smaller promotional stuff we’ve done,” added Holcombe.

“And we write all of our own music,” said Long.

When asked if they’d ever want to hire someone to step in and run their social media and help with their promotional stuff, Jordan replied:

“It would be nice, but I think it’s about the end result. We’re not going to go to somebody we wouldn’t want. Like if it looks cool we would do it, if it doesn’t we wouldn’t.”

As previously mentioned, the band actively researches other bands both in Tallahassee and throughout the southeast. In their free time, the members go to shows to, not only support other artists, but to essentially scout bands. If they come across visiting bands that they like, they propose what Clark refers to as a “show swap” in where they offer to let the band open for them at a show in Tallahassee in exchange for an opening slot in the visiting band’s city. This has been another beneficial factor that has played a part in Brightside’s success.

With their upcoming tour, Brightside has spent a lot of hours preparing their set to ensure that everything will run smoothly on tour.

“We rented out Side Bar two days ago to run the set,” said Clark. “And, a big deal to look pro is how fast you get off the stage, so we practice [loading and unloading]. We’re trying to be as cool as possible and make sure that everything is perfect for the person after us.”

“Rehearsing our set exactly how it’s going to be on a stage is so much different than in the room that we play in,” said Long. “The room that we play in is a lot smaller so we’re all turned towards each other, so just getting used to all being faced away and making sure you can walk to change a guitar or a chord, and just making sure you know where everything is, has been very helpful, so that when we’re up there playing, nothing can really bother us and we can just focus on playing the songs.”

The WTK10 Tour kicks off Tuesday March 28 at the Side Bar. The lineup is Brightside, Plaid Brixx, Cute Is What We Aim For and We The Kings. Tickets can be purchased for $25 in advance off of We The Kings’ website, or at Retrofit Records, Midtown Pies and Big Chiefs Smoke shop, or at the door for $28.